I am currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, and in June 2025 I joined the Cowley lab on a secondment position at the University of Oxford. My project is a collaboration between the Sanger Institute, the University of Oxford and Open Targets. We aim to investigate the neuroinflammatory responses within different neurodegenerative diseases, such as: Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. To investigate this, I will utilise complex induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) models to try and recapitulate the key cell types (neurons, astrocytes and microglia) involved in these diseases and subsequently challenge the cells with different disease relevant pathologies.
At the University of Southampton I worked with iPSC-derived cerebral organoids (mini brains) that are an exciting tool that we can use to answer multiple questions about how our brains develop. A limitation of cerebral organoids is that they do not inherently develop a population of immune cells (microglia), therefore, I integrated iPSC-derived microglia into cerebral organoids, creating immunised cerebral organoids. Cerebral organoids also do not have a vascular system so I also worked to integrate blood vessels (via a blood vessel organoid) into an immunised cerebral organoid, creating assembloids (when two organoids, or organoid regions fuse together). The aim of this work was to develop a complex, more relevant system that could recapitulate how the human brain develops.
I became interested in research at the University of Sheffield, where I completed a BSc in Biomedical Science and also completed my PhD in Sensory Neuroscience. Whilst at the University of Sheffield my research focused on age-related hearing loss. I investigated a phenomenon that results in the re-wiring of the nerves that innervate the sensory hair cells within the cochlea. I helped to demonstrate that the re-wiring not only takes place in ageing, but also if a process called mechanoelectrical transduction (the conversion of mechanical stimuli, eg sounds, into electrical signals for the brain to process) transduction is disrupted.
Outside of the lab I enjoy watching and playing football and cricket, whilst also playing guitar, being out in nature and cooking.